Low-fare buses crash more often, NTSB study finds

By Ken Valenti, The (Westchester County, N.Y.) Journal News

NEW YORK
–
Buses run by small, low-fare curbside companies are involved in fatal crashes seven times as often as those run by traditional companies such as Greyhound, federal investigators said Monday.

By David Karp, AP

Emergency personnel attend to the crash of a low-fare Chinatown bus on March 12.

"It is abundantly clear that the oversight of this industry has not kept pace with its growth, and the consequences have been deadly," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., who joined NTSB Chairwoman Deborah Hersman in a Manhattan news conference to release the report.

The NTSB concluded that bus travel in the country is safe.

Even so, the report showed that fatal accidents were more frequent in companies that use fewer than 10 buses and are less than a decade old.

From 2005 through March, the study showed, curbside carriers were involved in 1.4 fatal accidents per 100 vehicles, compared with 0.2 accidents per 100 vehicles for conventional bus companies.

The smaller companies often pick up their customers by the curb, saving the costs of maintaining a presence in bus terminals.

Schumer proposed assigning each company a letter grade — such as A, B or C — and requiring companies to post the grade at ticket windows and on their websites.

Peter Pantuso, president of the American Bus Association, said the rating system was not as important as monitoring the companies and stopping bad ones from endangering passengers. "Regardless of what system you put into place, at the end of the day, it's all about enforcement," he said.

For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.